Somerset takes first steps toward rejoining Fire Commission

March 26-- Mar. 26--The march for the City of Somerset towards rejoining the Kentucky Fire Commission took its first steps Monday as the council held it's first reading of an ordinance that would do just that.

Fire Chief Tyler Jasper was on hand Monday to explain the specifics of what returning to the commission would mean to his department and to the city as a whole.

Each firefighter who has completed 100 hours of training would receive the incentive.

By his estimation, Jasper said the city would come out ahead by a net positive of around $147,000.

"With the $4,000 incentive pay, plus the matching retirement on that $4,000, the city's going to get about $156,000 from the state. We have to pay the matching FICA [Federal Insurance Contributions Act] and Medicare on that. It's paid out, and that's about $8,500," he said.

The only unknown costs that the city might accrue, Jasper said, were through unscheduled overtime which, by accepting the incentive pay, the city would have to pay at a higher rate than the current rate. Jasper said that would mean around $2 more per hour.

However, he said also that a plan was already in place that monitors and reduces unscheduled overtime.

The city left the incentive program in 2009 under the leadership of Mayor Eddie Girdler, who withdrew the city from the commission during a dispute between the city and the Kentucky Labor Cabinet regarding the calculation of overtime pay to firefighters.

While that dispute was settled in 2012, the city did not return to the program, and Girdler resisted attempts over the years to convince him to to do so. In 2017, Girdler stated that Somerset firefighters received raises over the years to compensate for not getting the incentive pay that the program provides.

Jasper told the council that out of the 28 firefighters currently employed, only 10 were around during the time the city changed paychecks to compensate.

In November 2011, Jasper explained, firefighters "were taken out of the incentive, and they were also taken off the 24/48 schedule, all of that at the same time. They adjusted the hourly rate to compensate for that because, I guess, the thinking at the time was all emergency services needs to be paid the same."

Former mayor Girdler stated several times over the years that to return to the program would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars -- at one point offering the sum of $750,000 -- claiming that by receiving the incentive, firefighters would be paid differently than first responders from other departments and, therefore, those departments would need to be given a raise to compensate.

But Jasper said Monday that the city's police officers have remained in their respective incentive program.

"It's never been paid the same and it never will be," Jasper said of the different departments.

"The police -- and I'm not knocking on the police -- but they are still in the incentive program, and they also got a raise at the same time in November, about $2,000 a year for all the officers that were currently employed with Somerset.

"Where my guys have kind of gotten the short end of the stick, if you want to say that, there was nothing done to the initial pay of a starting firefighter when all this happened. That incentive was not built into that pay for those guys that were hired after we went out of the incentive program. So, since 2011, every firefighter that's been hired has been shorted $3,000 or $4,000 a year because of the way that whole process was done."

The council will make the decision on whether or not to rejoin the commission after holding a second reading on the ordinance, which should take place at the next council meeting.

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